STOCKHOLM: Bjorn Andresen, a Swedish actor known for his performance in Luchino Visconti's award-winning "Death in Venice" (1971), has died at the age of 70, an associate said on Monday.
At the age of 15, Andresen was approached by the Italian director, who was searching for an actor to play Tadzio, a beautiful adolescent who composer Gustav von Aschenbach, played by Dirk Bogarde, becomes obsessed with.
Andresen passed away on Saturday from cancer, Kristina Lindstrom, who directed a documentary about the Swedish actor's life, told AFP, adding they had "learned about it from his daughter".
Lindstrom called Andresen a "courageous" person for sharing the difficulties of his life with the public.
"It's a particular situation when you spend so much time together over so many years. Even though I knew he was ill, it's still a type of dismay," she said.
Andresen's role in the famous Franco-Italian film, which earned him the epithet "the most beautiful boy in the world," propelled him to worldwide fame.
He later recounted how this experience plunged him into depression and addiction.
After the premiere of "Death in Venice," Visconti took him to a gay club with a group of men, where he "guzzled" down alcohol to numb his feeling of loneliness, he told newspaper Expressen in 2021.
"I had no problems during the filming. But once it was over, I felt like a piece of meat thrown to the wolves. Physically, nothing happened to me, but it was very unpleasant still," he told the newspaper.
The following year, during a trip to Japan, he was encouraged to use drugs to dare to sing in front of an audience, according to Swedish media.
Born on January 26, 1955, in Stockholm, he grew up without a father and his mother committed suicide when he was 10. He was then raised by his grandparents.
In 2019, he had a role in Ari Aster's horror movie "Midsommar", where he played the role of the elderly Dan.